Big data architecture and infrastructure

These days everybody seems to be working with "big data". But what does this mean precisely? What kind of data are we speaking about? Which infrastructure does one need for it? And what does it buy us? During this training, we are pursuing answers to these questions!

Data is gradually becoming more and more vital to any kind of enterprise. Analysing large amounts of data aimed at optimizing enterprise processes, marketing, important decisions, ... is not new. But because of the steadily increasing data volumes, the increasing diversity of data sources, and the broader availability of data, such an analysis is expecting always more from the infrastructure, the software, and the data models. In so far even that it seems like a new framework will be necessary. The traditional, established relational model seems to fall short in describing and guiding the new challenges of "data analysis for business intelligence".

"Big data analytics" is the name of this coordinating framework, in which both old models and techniques (like date warehousing, online analytic processing, Hadoop, cluster analysis, ...) and newer insights (data in motion, emotional text analytics, ...) have found each other. The capability to condense relevant insights from more diverse, larger, and rapidly changing data, can help managers and other decision makers to better support their decisions.

This course gives a general picture of big data and what it represents: an overview is given of the technologies on which it is based, and the frequently heard technological terms which we need to get acquainted with are placed in context and perspective.